Summary of Duties of a Coordinator
for a Yizkor Book Translation Project

Fundraising Project: the yizkor book will be translated with funds raised to pay for a professional translator.

The Coordinator is responsible for writing a project proposal which describes the project and its importance, number of pages to be translated, and estimates of costs. This proposal is linked to the Yizkor Book JewishGen-erosity page.

The Coordinator must sign a JewishGen volunteer agreement.

The Coordinator is responsible for raising funds for the project.

The Coordinator works closely with the JewishGenProject Manager on selecting and hiring of a translator once sufficient funds are available to start. The entire funding does not have to be available at the beginning of the project.

The Project Manager writes the Work for Hire Agreement, which is an agreement between the translator and JewishGen, and approves invoices after they are issued by the translator and approved by the Coordinator.

The Coordinator works closely with the translator by selecting the chapters to be translated, proofreading the translations to ensure they are written in idiomatic English, helping the translator transliterate proper names by checking online databases, and keeping other researchers of that town aware of new translations.

The Coordinator should have good computer skills and have MS WORD and EXCEL on his/her computer as we require that translations of narrative chapters be submitted in WORD and lists such as necrologies and name indices be in EXCEL. Often formatting of a table of contents looks better in Excel.The ability to scan images from the yizkor book is not required but is an asset.

The typical Coordinator is committed to the translation of the yizkor book because of personal connections to the town. A frequent question is whether the Coordinator needs to know Hebrew and/or Yidish. While those language skills are desirable, they are not required. Most of the current project Coordinators do not. It is also helpful for the Coordinator to know others interested in that particular town as they may be willing and able to translate material from the yizkor book. This would lower the estimated funds needed to translate the book.

The Coordinator submits completed translations to the Project Manager, who forwards them to the html team. The Coordinator is notified before the material goes online so that she/he can proofread the html copy before it is linked to the Yizkor Book Index page at http://www.jewishgen.org/Yizkor/translations.html

Regular translation project: the yizkor book is translated by volunteer translators.

Typically the Coordinator submits a signed donor agreement to JewishGen.

The Coordinator will be working with volunteer translators, so their abilities in two languages--the original and English--must be assessed by the Coordinator. If the volunteers cannot translate into idiomatic English which captures the nuances of the original, the Coordinator may decide not to use them. If the translations do not meet standards for literate idiomatic English, JewishGen may not accept the translations.

The Coordinator's job is to work closely with the translator(s), to select the chapters to be translated, to proofread the translations to ensure that they are written in idiomatic English, to help the translator(s) transliterate proper names by checking online databases, if needed. If a Coordinator is using multiple volunteers, he/she needs to ensure consistencye.g., that proper nouns are spelled the same by each person. Providing a list of preferred spelling of proper nouns beforehand simplifies the task.

The Coordinator should have good computer skills and have MS WORD and EXCEL on his/her computer as the yizkor Book Project requires that translations of narrative chapters be submitted in WORD and lists such as necrologies and name indices be in EXCEL. Often formatting of a table of contents looks better in Excel.The ability to scan images from the yizkor book is not required but is an asset.

The typical Coordinator is committed to the translation of the yizkor book because of personal connections to the town. A frequent question is whether the Coordinator needs to know Hebrew and/or Yidish. While those language skills are desirable, they are not required. Most of the current project Coordinators do not. It is also helpful for the Coordinator to know others interested in that particular town.

The Coordinator is responsible for assuring that all volunteer translators complete a donor agreement, which should be mailed, scanned, or faxed to JewishGen .

The Coordinator submits completed translations to the Project Manager, who forwards them to the html team. The project Coordinator is notified before the material goes online so that she/he can proofread the html copy before it is linked to the Yizkor Book Index page at http://www.jewishgen.org/Yizkor/translations.html